Once upon a time there was an old man. He was really good at fishing. One day, he was fishing on the bank of a river. Soon he caught a full basket of fish. Just at that time, a child came and said to him, "Can you give me the fishing rod(钓鱼竿) in your hands? The old man looked up at him and said, "I can give you a full basket of fish." But the child shook his head. The old man was surprised and asked, "Why do you want the rod instead of the fish?"

    "Oh! You know it doesn't take long to eat all the fish in a basket. But if I have the fishing rod, I can go fishing by myself and I won't be afraid of not having any fish to eat."

    You may certainly think that the child is very smart. Wrong! If he doesn't know how to fish, he cannot eat any fish, even if he has the fishing rod. It's useless to only have a fishing rod. Fishing skills are more important than the fishing rod.

    Too many people think that if they have "a fishing rod" in their life, they will no longer fear the wind and rain. In fact they will make the same mistake like the child in the story.

    Roald Dahl was one of the most successful writers of children's books. He sold millions of books all over the world. Many of his books have been made into films and videos. He is so famous that there is even a Roald Dahl Museum you can visit.

    Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales, Britain. His father was rich but he died when Roald was very young. Roald and his mother lived a hard life. He had to leave school and went to Africa where he worked for an oil company.

    In 1939, Roald became a pilot, but he had a bad accident. It made him limp(瘸的)for the rest of his life. After this, Roald went to America where he wrote a story about his experience as a pilot. It was so good that it was put in a magazine.

    Roald married an American film star. They bought a house in England and had five children. From 1960 to 1965, ：Theo, one of his children, was hit by a taxi and was seriously hurt. Oliva, one of Roald's daughters, died of a strange illness. Soon after this, his wife also had a serious illness. It took her years to get completely better.

    Gradually Roald became more and more successful. He always did his writing in an old shed(棚)at the back of his house. He always sat in the same old armchair with a wooden board on his lap.

    "One of the nice things about being a writer," he once said, "is that all you need is what you've got in your head and a pencil and a bit of paper."

    In 1983 Roald won a big prize for his book The BFG. During his life, Roald wrote many famous books, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox.

    After he died in 1990, Roald left money to help people with serious illness and those with problems with reading and writing.

    Hello! I'm Emma Brown. I'm 13 years old. My phone number is 621-9843. Look at this picture. The boy and the girl in the picture are Dave Green and Mary Green. Dave Green and Mary Green are brother and sister. Dave Green is my aunt's son, and he is 12 years old. His phone number is 230-0963. Mary Green is my aunt's daughter, and she is 10 years old. Her phone number is 230-0965.

    One day an American was in Africa. He wanted to go to a small village in the hill. He got on a bus and the driver said: "The yellow ticket is one dollar. I have two other tickets. The red one is fifty cents, and the green, ten cents." "A green one, please "said the man. The bus started to get up the hill. Suddenly it stopped. "Red ticket passengers, get out and walk. Green ticket passengers, get out, close the door, and push the bus." shouted the driver.

A neighbor of mine, while visiting his mother in Boston, took her to a shoe store to buy a new pair of shoes. While she was trying on different styles, my neighbor took the manager（经理）beside him. "When she picks out a pair that she likes,' he said, "just tell her that the price is 12 dollars. I'll pay the regular price. I don't care how much it is.'

The following week, my neighbor was walking by the shoe store and the manager recognized (认出)him and called him in.

"What's the problem?' asked my neighbor as he entered the store.

"Wasn't my check any good?'

"That's not it,' answered the manager, "The problem is that your mother is bringing all her friends in for those 12-dollar shoes!'

Hi! Oliver,

How are you? I want to tell you something about my {#blank#}1{#/blank#} to the city space museum two days ago. I never visited there before, so I was very excited! When my sister and I arrived, we started to explore. It's very large and {#blank#}2{#/blank#} interesting and exciting objects to touch.

The {#blank#}3{#/blank#} room looks like deep space. There is information about different planets with a game at the end. The winner can create a name for a {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Isn't that exciting?

The next room looks like the inside of a spaceship. You can touch an astronaut's spacesuit and you can see {#blank#}5{#/blank#} the astronauts prepare their food.